Michael
Gorban

Using meticulous technique, Michael Gorban creates a realistic sense that integrates childhood memories and forgotten places from the Ukrainian village he once lived in. Gorban’s handprint is distinctly recognizable on the canvas. He consciously uses and applies color in a premeditated manner to guide the observer’s sensitivities. Gorban paints with the highest precision.

The way he sees and observes communicates keen and amazingly powerful realism. This book presents three main series on which Gorban worked between 2002 and 2008, and which continue his earlier series on similar subjects: windows – through which landscapes are seen, musical instruments, and empty chairs. The three subjects seem to be intertwined in most of the paintings, and form a distinguishing feature in the artist’s handprint.

Room interiors, still lifes and landscapes have been the most predominant subjects addressed in Western art since the 16th century. The subjects of the painting are primarily presented visually in the center of the picture. Gorban does not depict dramatic events; neither are these paintings imbued with any national-social-political-religious meaning. They are introspective paintings, sometimes devoid of movement, almost without human figures or vehicles, bearing many meanings for the artist’s sensitivities and his responses to life and reality. Some naïve charm, harmony and sentimentality are evident, as stylized narrative descriptions merge with nature and human reality.

A poetic atmosphere pervades the paintings, and a sense of silence and calm envelopes them. These paintings are far from being conceptual, heroic or lofty. They direct one’s attention to the poetical in the mundane. Gorban displays control over composition, relationships between objects, rhythm, and color harmony. He paints the reality of longing that belongs to the emotional and spiritual world, while emphasizing the color scheme suckled by nature, light, and the colorfulness of his childhood haunts. Revealed in each painting are beauty and exceptional colors, in a pleasing, intimate harmony, thereby creating a symphony of gradually changing hues at sunset or sunrise.